Kenya Project Vol 1: Putting a plan together...

So I had planned to keep people updated via a blog while in Kenya. Little to my knowledge I can't update this blog using my phone or tablet. I'm not the most technological type! So here it goes...this is how our project went on the ground..

Day 1:- Meeting the Eduet Women and establishing their needs

The journey to the Eduet Women was no easy feat. We stayed in the largest nearby town of Loitokitok, the Eduet Women were 1 hours drive via public transport (matatu) followed by a 30 minute drive by boda boda (motorbike). This is on a good day when the conditions and traffic is good! The roads weren't the best...

Once we arrived at the women's group, the main chair lady, secretary, treasurer and general members of the group were there to greet us and were very excited to see us. They served us a lovely lunch of chai (Kenyan tea served with lots of milk and sugar), beef stew, matoke (plantain), greens (kale), chapati and some fresh fruits to finish us off. We had been spoiled rotten. This type of meal is certainly for a special occasion and not everyday sort of food. After lunch we took a look around the site and established a plan.

The situation turned out to be a little bit better than we originally expected. Since my last visit two years ago, the women had established a water supply from a nearby school 10km from the area. The school gave them a sporadic supply of water (in differing amounts) once per week. But the Eduet women never knew what time the water was coming and were currently storing the water in a broken cow trough and some jerry cans. If the water came during the night they were unable to keep swapping the jerry cans so they were wasting a lot of much needed water.

Jerry cans used to collect water.

Next to the polytunnel you can see the cow trough also used to store water.

Based on the needs of the community we decided that the best course of action was to install 2 water tanks. One tank which would be connected to the water supply from the school which would then feed into a drip irrigation system within the polytunnel to help them grow food. Drip irrigation is the most effective way of watering plants when water is scarce as water is applied directly to the roots of the plants which is where most of the water is absorbed from a plant. This method also reduces the amount of water wasted via evaporation so there is very little waste. The second tank would be used to collect rain water from the main building using guttering.

We were extremely pleased to find that on our arrival the group had already made one concrete base for the the tank which would be used for the drip system. Bases are needed for water tanks because otherwise small stones in the ground can penetrate the tank and over time they damage it causing leakages. This meant that we only needed to build one concrete base for the group.

The concrete base built by the Eduet women prior to our arrival - this would save us a lot of time and demonstrates their proactive nature.

If successful, the two 10,000L tanks would not be an end to their water troubles but would make life a lot easier. The tanks would enable the women to have enough water to temporarily home 8 rescued girls at a time before finding them more permenant homes and certainly provide enough drinking water. The women also felt hopeful that the water would be enough to grow their crops because last year they still managed a very small yield despite a lack of water storage so the tank should enable the group to grow enough to feed themselves, the rescued girls plus hopefully sell some at the market to generate more income for their activities.

We did some research to justify these assumptions. We wanted to ensure that anything we did do was adequate and not 1. inadequate for the groups needs and 2. a waste of the fundraising money. Based on the crops that they grow (tomatos, kales, cabbages and onions) you can fit approx 700 plants in the greenhouse at 30cm spacings apart. Based on the watering schedule, taking into consideration the climate of the area and the type of crops grown, then you would use 3234 litres of water per week for this polytunnel. The tank has a capacity of 10,000 litres so one full tank can last approximately 3 weeks. This is enough based on the supply from the the school. If there were any problems and the supply from the school was low then the second water tank can also be hooked up to the drip irrigation system but obviously this tank will only be filled when it rains.

A plan is starting to come together...